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I have to comment on this "Norv Turner as Bears OC" bullcrap. Norv is overrated. Football has passed him by. I would be disapointed if he was made an OC. I really don't see him as a "Offense Genius Mastermind." lol

If Lovie stays, he needs to fire Tice. All we heard was that he was a Oline Guru. Really? He's wasted 3 years on that fat Webb. JC has almost been killed because of that guy. Tice had his chance and failed, IMO. He has ignored common sense and I want him gone.

After Lovie fires Tice, he needs to promote Bates. He was an OC at Seattle with no talent. Go read about what he had to work with. There wasn't much. Bates has expeirence with JC & Bmarsh. I believe JC trusts him, and the two of them probably could game plan better then Tice.

If Lovie stays, and I assume he will, he needs young fresh blood on his coaching staff that wants to prove himself. (Bates)

Please, I beg you, let's drop this Norv bullcrap now. It's annoying.

I agree with all of this EXCEPT I wonder if the OL problems are all Tice's fault. Everyone agrees that we haven't brought in as much OL talent as we should have. Those decisions are mostly made the higher ups (Emery, Lovie, McCaskey's), not Tice. Tice gets to evaluate talent, but the final calls on how much he gets to spend and draft are not in his hands. So he's forced to work with what he's got. And I know he's been outspoken about standing by his OL, but he can't exactly **** on his bosses.

I feel the same at times. Just such a massive upgrade from Webb it calms me, branden Albert will be our first look with emerys contact with kc

Yeah he's still holding **** down a bit better than Long, right? I'm saying, if Long struggles with these new-age pass-rushers, how much of an upgrade is he over Webb really? We've seen Webb can actually be quite good when he's not facing one of those types, and he's also above-average with the run block (although that might not be true anymore as we have sucked something terrible the last month running the ball), so I just don't see if adding that huge contract will be worth it.

Honestly, I see T'eo going Top 8 b/c a team won't be able to ignore his achievements this year. If he does somehow drop past the top ten, I'd be all for trying to move up to get him. Not saying it's the right move b/c only time will tell how good he is, but certainly something I'd do.

I agree with all of this EXCEPT I wonder if the OL problems are all Tice's fault. Everyone agrees that we haven't brought in as much OL talent as we should have. Those decisions are mostly made the higher ups (Emery, Lovie, McCaskey's), not Tice. Tice gets to evaluate talent, but the final calls on how much he gets to spend and draft are not in his hands. So he's forced to work with what he's got. And I know he's been outspoken about standing by his OL, but he can't exactly **** on his bosses.

I blame Tice 100%. Williams, Carimi, Spencer, Garza, Rachal is a shitton of high-drafted OL talent, and he hasn't made any of them work yet.

It's unlikely that we've struck out on every lineman we've drafted in the past 5-6 seasons just from the standpoint of not acquiring talent.

I blame Tice 100%. Williams, Carimi, Spencer, Garza, Rachal is a shitton of high-drafted OL talent, and he hasn't made any of them work yet.

It's unlikely that we've struck out on every lineman we've drafted in the past 5-6 seasons just from the standpoint of not acquiring talent.

Well Tice had nothing to do with evaluating Williams's and Graza's talent or drafting them. And when Tice took over Garza was already over the hill.

Of those named you can only hold Tice responsible for:

Spencer was **** when we acquired him and he's still ****. Who's choice was it to acquire him? Tice or upper management? and if it was Tice, was he limited in terms of the amount he could spend?

Rachal IMO was actually doing fairly well until something happened and he left the team (I still have no idea what happened there).

Carimi is the only OL in your list that Tice was involved with drafting, and he was out almost the entirety of last season due to injury. So really he's still in his rookie year and needs time to develop and recover from his knee injury. The jury is still out.

And I agree that he's also responsible for Webb and Webb is ****. But what can you honestly expect from a 7th round pick. While you guys criticize Tice for sticking with him, I'm saying that he may not have had a choice if Lovie or Emery or the McCaskey's were unwilling to spend big money on a LT FA. I'm not completely defending Tice. I'm just saying he could be the scape goat in this situation while the real problem is hire up the chain of command. We have no way of knowing.

When has there been a big name FA LT to acquire? The answer is there hasn't been.

What happened to our LT that was playing decently (at least wasn't ******** his pants)? Oh, Tice moved him to OG and decided to start the Webb Experiment at LT?...yeah, great personnel decision on the coach's part there.

What about Carimi and his sudden inability to pass block? Man, maybe that's on the OL coach...

No, he didn't have a hand in acquiring Spencer nor Garza, but both have declined rapidly in Tice's scheme. Maybe that's partly due to sucking (Spencer) and age (Garza), but we're seeing repeated failure with every player we have. SOMETHING has to be a common tie there.

Long is going to cost a ton, he's a massive risk that could end up absolutely killing us. I'm just not sure we should go that route. From the sound of it, he really struggles with the smaller, quick pass-rushers and I can't imagine that improving. He's only going to get slower and struggle more as more teams employ these types of players. If they haven't been able to strike a deal, its likely because Miami wants him to take a cut in line with his current performance, and he's not down with that. Its not like the kid has been working for peanuts for years and is finally in-line for a new deal, and has earned a huge raise. He's always had a massive contract and its debatable of whether or not he's worth it anymore.

He scares me.

He has had one down year, in a year where they change OL scheme. I remember reading some articles before the season started, that they expected him to struggle in this new scheme.

When has there been a big name FA LT to acquire? The answer is there hasn't been.

What happened to our LT that was playing decently (at least wasn't ******** his pants)? Oh, Tice moved him to OG and decided to start the Webb Experiment at LT?...yeah, great personnel decision on the coach's part there.

What about Carimi and his sudden inability to pass block? Man, maybe that's on the OL coach...

No, he didn't have a hand in acquiring Spencer nor Garza, but both have declined rapidly in Tice's scheme. Maybe that's partly due to sucking (Spencer) and age (Garza), but we're seeing repeated failure with every player we have. SOMETHING has to be a common tie there.

Carimi's sudden inability could have a lot to do with his knee and mobility issues.

It didn't have to be a LT. Why didn't we try for Nicks when he hit the market? An improvement anywhere on the OL is an improvement to the unit as a whole. The Williams Webb thing is on Tice. My point is getting rid of Tice is not going to fix our OL issues because there are a lot more people to blame than just Tice.
The philosophy of our FO, with respect to OL, has to change. We don't seem to value OL as compared to other positions, we don't evaluate OL talent well, and we can't develop OL talent. These problems were around well before Tice showed up, and they haven't changed. That can't all be on Tice.

Carimi's sudden inability could have a lot to do with his knee and mobility issues.

It didn't have to be a LT. Why didn't we try for Nicks when he hit the market? An improvement anywhere on the OL is an improvement to the unit as a whole. The Williams Webb thing is on Tice. My point is getting rid of Tice is not going to fix our OL issues because there are a lot more people to blame than just Tice.
The philosophy of our FO, with respect to OL, has to change. We don't seem to value OL as compared to other positions, we don't evaluate OL talent well, and we can't develop OL talent. These problems were around well before Tice showed up, and they haven't changed. That can't all be on Tice.

My guess is because, while Nicks is outstanding, paying $10mil/year on a guard wasn't a priority considering we had/have Forte, Jay, Melton, Urlacher, Jennings, etc. to lock up in contracts.

Not valuing OL...completely disagree. Of the 8 first round draft picks we had in Angelo's era, two were spent on OL. If you go back to the year before Angelo, 3 of our 9 first round draft picks were spent on OL. We've place a priority there. Columbo didn't work out due to injury. Williams is a combination of injury and mismanagement by Tice. Carimi is to be seen.

And yes, our problems with development were here before Tice, that's correct. The inability to hire an OL talent developer is on the FO. However, the inability to perform is on the OL coach. And that's Tice. There are more people to blame, but our recent immense ********* of an OL is absolutely on Tice.

My guess is because, while Nicks is outstanding, paying $10mil/year on a guard wasn't a priority considering we had/have Forte, Jay, Melton, Urlacher, Jennings, etc. to lock up in contracts.

Not valuing OL...completely disagree. Of the 8 first round draft picks we had in Angelo's era, two were spent on OL. If you go back to the year before Angelo, 3 of our 9 first round draft picks were spent on OL. We've place a priority there. Columbo didn't work out due to injury. Williams is a combination of injury and mismanagement by Tice. Carimi is to be seen.

And yes, our problems with development were here before Tice, that's correct. The inability to hire an OL talent developer is on the FO. However, the inability to perform is on the OL coach. And that's Tice. There are more people to blame, but our recent immense ********* of an OL is absolutely on Tice.

My point exactly. We didn't think paying 10 mill for an elite guard was worth it, despite OL being the weakest part of our team. If that's how the FO feels, when will we ever pay the requisite money for an elite OL talent?

If you're admitting that there are more people to blame, then how is our current OL situation "absolutely on Tice?"

You're right about valuing OL in the draft, but we don't value or go after top OL FAs. Apparently, we want to save money by drafting and developing OL talent, which is fine, except we can't develop ****. We should be pursuing proven talent, given our inability to develop talent.

I know Tice has been frustrating but I cringe at the thought of having Cutler and the Bears offense learn ANOTHER new offensive system; yes, I'm sure Bates would carry over many of the same things but there'd definitely be significant differences, as well IMO.

You know what's the worst part of all this? Statistically I'm probably wrong, but it certainly seemed like we were a better running team with Martz at the helm...

My point exactly. We didn't think paying 10 mill for an elite guard was worth it, despite OL being the weakest part of our team. If that's how the FO feels, when will we ever pay the requisite money for an elite OL talent?

If you're admitting that there are more people to blame, then how is our current OL situation "absolutely on Tice?"

You're right about valuing OL in the draft, but we don't value or go after top OL FAs. Apparently, we want to save money by drafting and developing OL talent, which is fine, except we can't develop ****. We should be pursuing proven talent, given our inability to develop talent.

Paying $10 mil/year to damn near any player is stupid management. The "requisite money" depends on the player AND the position. You're a dumb owner if you pay a guard money that you pay a WR. I don't agree with that philosophy, but that's how the structure of the game is, and if your C and T next to you suck anyway, you're not going to get the impact out of the guard that you would if the C and T were halfway decent.

If you want to go by PFF, there are 26 guards that grade at +5.0 or better on the season. Some of them are highly paid, some are not. You're always taking a gamble when you sign a player to a massive contract, and it's not always wise to do so when you have other needs. Signing Carl Nicks cripples the **** out of the franchise, and guess what? He's out for the season, so you're pissing money away on someone that isn't able to play.

The point of all of that is you have to be smart in where you take your risks. Yes, Carl Nicks is damn near a sure thing to be a good player, but if the rest of your OL is garbage, it doesn't matter how good he is/isn't.

As for the middle part, because Tice is the OL coach. The problem isn't acquiring talent. It's grooming it. Who is our OL coach? The FO is responsible for getting an OL coach, and it falls on them for not getting the right guy. BUT, it falls on the coach for failing to develop talent. I don't get what's hard to understand about that.

And bull ****ing **** on not going after top OL guys. Recently, no, we haven't, but like was mentioned, there haven't been a lot of guys that make sense to go after (if any at all). Outside of Nicks, Mathis, and Grubbs, I can't think of an elite (nor desirable) OL to pursue in the past 3 seasons as a FA. Do you not remember the lines Angelo built through FA when we were dominant in the mid 00s? It's not that we completely ignore the position. The Bears haven't done a good job of maintaining/developing talent, and that's coaching, not FO.